Numerous moviegoers who cried their way through The Fault in Our Stars will return to theaters this weekend when the adaptation of Paper Towns, Green’s 2008 novel about a teenaged boy searching for his elusive dream-girl gone missing, lands with a highly anticipated star turn from model/actress Cara Delevigne. It helps that Quentin has adored her from a distance for basically his whole life.
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Weber, as well as star Nat Wolff, who plays the cautious and quiet Quentin. He mostly hangs out with fellow nerds Radar (Justice Smith) and Ben (Austin Abrams), commiserating about the suffering existence they can’t wait to leave behind. Central Cabarrus High School in Concord stands in for the Orlando school, and Charlotte actress Meg Crosbie has a supporting role as Margo’s mercenary younger sister. But the morning after the nighttime adventure happens, something curious happens – Margo completely disappears.
They launch an amateur Hardy Boys expedition, seeking out clues the mystery-loving Margo may or may not have left. A road trip ensues that might jeopardize prom and graduation for all involved, leaving Quentin torn between the desires of his heart and his brain.
The set make a whole night exploration before Margo goes away and Quentin moves on a goal to identify her. The young man was instantly smitten and the pair forged a fast friendship, but as high school draws to a close, they’ve grown apart.
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The title comes from a real thing map-makers did, creating fake towns to prevent forgers from copycatting their work. And it’s also, entirely, about fantasy, particularly in the character of Margo. But anyone with the perspicacity of a newt would see through her at once, so the film begins with a lie. After enough casual scenes of the three goofing around or confronting their approaching graduation, Paper Towns eventually makes each more complex than a John Hughes riff. Although it doesn’t add up to much in the end, the film – dutifully directed by Jake Schreier (Robot and Frank) – is more honest than subversive, managing a certain level of tenderness and honesty beneath its impulsive shenanigans. As played by Delevingne, she looks like a supermodel, speaks with the sexy rasp of a femme fatale, moves with the grace of a cat (when breaking into someone’s house, she somersaults into the room like a gymnast) and, even at the age of 9 in the film’s prologue, is uncannily and poetically quote-worthy. This is an intelligent, funny, sad yet hopeful take on the folly of waiting for big miracles instead of creating small ones of our own.
